CONNOLLY, Cyril. The Rock Pool. Paris: The Obelisk Press, [May 1936]. Square 8vo. Half title (some very light discolouration and staining at edges). Original pale blue wrappers lettered and decorated in darker blue (some light staining, extremities lightly rubbed), modern box. FIRST EDITION OF THE AUTHOR’S FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL, PRESENTATION COPY, the half title inscribed, “Anthony Hobson from Cyril Connolly. This little tribute to Samuel Rogers.” The rear turn-in of the wrapper has advertisements for Henry Miller’s Black Spring and Tropic of Cancer and Frank Harris’s My life and Loves. The Rock Pool is described as being “Just published. The first novel by the famous London literary critic.” The work’s flawed protagonist, Edgar Naylor, is the ‘self-appointed biographer of Samuel Rogers, the banker-bard of St James’s Place’ (p.19), accounting for the author’s reference in his inscription. In this copy, the phrase ‘product of capitalism’ has been crossed out in the dedicatory preface, presumably by the author.